Planetes
by SlowQuotesQuill
Summary: AU. Socially-awkward Ouma Shu never expected the school's own idol Yuzuriha Inori to confess to him, of all people... Of course, there are a few kinks to sort out when you're going out with an idol, and Shu has to learn how to face everyday while regaining everything that he had lost that one evening ten years ago, when his father died... and when everything was still in his grasp.
1. Confession

**Planetes**

* * *

**One  
**_Kokuhaku  
_[Confession]

* * *

_I wonder if you remember,  
__when I fell in love with you__…_

—**Kokuhaku**, supercell (trans.)

* * *

There was a time in Ouma Shu's life when he would have thought with some certainty that he could just approach someone with Yuzuriha Inori's status, talk to her, and just get away with it. He would have, too. That was when everything was well with his world—when he gets everything that he wants with a flick of his wrist. When he wasn't so… _content_ to stay in the shadows as he was wont to do these days.

But the transition from child to adolescent had been hard on his constitution, what with his widowed father passing away due to a brutal murder that was still yet unresolved, and Shu was left with his elder sister, twenty-two-year-old Mana, and his rather airheaded stepmother, Haruka, to manage the affairs of the house. He didn't mind his father's death as much as he did the sudden emptiness of the house. It was as if Shu's heart went along with the last of his parents.

And that was one of the many factors why he didn't just approach Yuzuriha Inori that morning as she went up to her desk just adjacent to his own, nor speak to her when he sensed her looking at him with those quiet, intelligent eyes of hers. He quite liked the way she stared at people vacantly yet inquisitively, as if everyone was a mystery that she couldn't quite unravel even with the frequency that she interacted with them every day.

Shu did note that that frequency was quite high, since Inori was rather popular in school, being one of the prettier girls of their year, and a rising internet idol at that. But it wasn't quite purely her beauty that attracted people to her—maybe it was the fact that she was rather unreadable in expression, making her practically an enigma in the eyes of the hormone-charged boys in the school. Everyone loves a mystery—especially if that mystery was in the form of a slender, pale teenage girl with dyed hair and a beautiful voice.

Shu had to admit, he was one of them.

"Shu."

He raised his eyes at the sound of the voice that called out to him, and met the glass eyes of Yuzuriha Inori. She looked unperturbed at his look of surprise, but Shu was already panicking deep inside. What was he supposed to say to the girl that he had crushed on for the better part of two years, and yet hadn't spoken two cents' worth all this time?

He dropped his eyes, suddenly afraid. Irrationally, he was afraid of Yuzuriha Inori's searching eyes. He was afraid of that low, blank voice calling out his name.

The bell rang. Inori made a little scowl with her brows, as if frustrated at Shu's deliberate ignorance of her, and turned back to face the front. Feeling the atmosphere lighten, Shu let out a sigh of relief.

"Stand…!"

* * *

"Shu! Hey, man, looking as spaced-out as always." Loud, bubbly, and ever-energetic, Tamadate Souta flung himself at the chair before Shu's desk moments after the bell had rung, his dark eyes positively shining with energy. Shu never got how Souta managed to keep jumping all over the place all day without tiring, but had not enough interest to actually ask.

"What is it? The forms were already filled out and giv—"

"No, I'm not after those, Yahiro's already told me that much. Anyway…" Souta looked around with an overly dramatic secrecy and whispered conspiratorially, "I saw Inori looking at you quite interestedly earlier. You don't think she's into guys like _you_, eh? Eh?"

Shu glared at Souta, or rather stared hard at him. Shu had always thought that there was something in himself that always reduced the intensity of his emotions by half, and either way, Souta was too busy probing into the matter to notice his irritation. "So, Ouma Shu-sama? What?"

"I don't think she's that interested in me," Shu finally replied disconsolately, dropping back on his arms, which were resting on the desk. "I'm just nobody."

"You have a bad case of inferiority complex, my friend." Souta tutted (sympathetically or otherwise, Shu can't decipher) and smirked as he watched Shu sigh into his arms. "I'd kill just to have her look at me _that_ long. She's not much into acknowledging others, you know. Although, rumor has it that she's dating Tsutsugami Gai from next door, so maybe that's a contributing factor…"

"Tsutsugami Gai?" Shu groaned. "It's hopeless, then."

"Hopeless? So you _do_ admit you're into Inori as well." Souta chortled as Shu resurfaced indignantly, looking a few shades worse than he did before. "He's, like, some kind of demigod. What with his inhumanly perfection and all. Not the type that strikes you on idol status, eh, Shu?"

"No." Shu narrowed his eyes, fingers clenching on the smooth desktop. "Never."

* * *

Shu had never told anyone this ever since getting into Tennouzu High School, but Tsutsugami Gai had been a sort of childhood friend to him back when he was seven years old… when all was still right with his world. Or maybe calling Gai a "childhood friend" was an overstatement. It had been just a fleeting summer memory, in fact—Shu only remembered Gai by his golden hair and ocean-blue eyes and his tremulous, shy voice. And then, as quickly as failing candlelight, he vanished, and emerged ten years later, strong, tall, charismatic—all the qualities that Shu himself had lost in the same time period.

Shu admitted quite grudgingly that it was one of the reasons why he hated the guy's guts so much… although he admired Gai for the same reason as well. It was quite something to see in him the qualities that Shu might still have possessed if only his father's death were not as sudden as it had been. Ouma Kurosu's murder caught Shu unprepared in childhood, sneaking into his life like a thief, stealing away the brightness that shone in his eyes and leaving a mere shadow of the boy that he used to be.

Shu stared at the window beside his desk. A ghostly image of him stared back.

"Damn," he muttered to himself, suddenly disconcerted.

The rest of the day would have been quite unremarkable for someone in Shu's disposition if not for a single, very simple incident that left him as confused as the next person.

The simple incident in question was a single, unsigned piece of folded stationery placed carefully inside his shoelocker, directly on top of his leather school shoes. It briefly crossed his mind that it might be a girl's love letter asking him to come meet him somewhere to confess her feelings to him or something of the sort, but his self-deprecation disallowed such nuances and squashed all romantic possibilities, leading him to stuff the letter inside his bag and forget all about it as soon as he stepped out of the school grounds.

The wind whistled dolefully after him as he walked to the station.

* * *

"Shu, this isn't normal anymore, you know."

"What the hell do _you_ know about these kinds of things anyway, Souta?"

"Ouch." Souta grimaced melodramatically as Shu finally managed to glare at him for once, the piece of the now-familiar unsigned letter crushed tightly in his fist. "But even I can tell that this situation is unusual as far as situations like these go, y'know."

"I should've said this the first time you told me that, but thank you for stating the obvious." Shu raised his closed fist and opened it gingerly, feeling the crumpled paper within shift uncomfortably in his loosening grasp. "Do you think the writer's some kind of stalker or something?"

"I wouldn't go so far as that yet," Souta shrugged, his tone matter-of-fact. "All she's doing is send you little messages that tell you to come to the library once you've read this, right? And why haven't you answered that summons already? It's just proper to refuse her outright if you don't like her rather than avoiding her, you know. Poor girl must have the patience of a saint to wait for you if you're gonna show up for every afternoon of the past week."

"I dunno myself," Shu said with an unsure tone, his eyes staring at the paper. But in his head, a lot of thoughts were already running in his head, raw and fast and hopeless. _I'm afraid that this is all just a joke, or maybe not but she's just gonna be disappointed if she'll get to know me more or maybe I'm being a jerk for not coming to her or maybe or maybe—_

"Shu? Hey, are you still listening?"

Shu was startled out of his reverie, disconcerted. "Sorry. My thoughts kind of slipped away for a moment."

He had left that letter from a week ago unanswered since he hadn't actually read it, but every afternoon after that, he had received the same kind of note lying inconspicuously on his shoes whenever he went to change to go out. And when he read it, it had always been the same simple message, written in dainty feminine characters:

_Meet me at the library once you've read this._

It worried and scared him like the plague, and thus he treated the message as if it were one, never once fulfilling the condition that was set out on the plain paper nor trying to think too much about it. That was, until that same afternoon when Souta asked him why he hadn't acted on the message yet. Obviously, the person on the other line hadn't made a mistake and really was dead-set on meeting _him_. Not anyone else. _Him_.

The usual note was again folded and placed carefully on his shoes when he opened the locker upon dismissal, and upon reading the same message that he had already memorized the past week within, he came into a decision and immediately sprinted back up to the noisy halls, past his classroom, and to the end of the corridor wherein the library was situated.

* * *

The library was quiet and empty today, except for the student assistant in duty for this afternoon who looked rather sleepy as she stared at Shu when he came in. Nodding rather nervously at the girl, Shu decided to comb the aisles for the mystery person who wanted to meet him in private so badly that they sent the same message without fail every day for the past week.

The library was pretty empty today, Shu only hearing his own footfalls as he stepped carefully along the side aisle to look at all the possible places. Seeing no one even at the very back, he huffed with annoyance and made as if to turn around—

"…Shu."

Hearing his name called out so abruptly in the silence of the room, Shu turned quickly, startled, his eyes focusing at the strange sight right behind him.

"You!" he finally managed to say out loud, his voice betraying him and coming out in an almost shrill whine. Blushing despite himself, he swallowed and stared at the slim, pale figure of Yuzuriha Inori standing behind him with a wary glance, as though she were some sort of mirage. "I don't believe it."

"Yes, me," was the quiet, almost amused reply—if Inori did have the capacity to look amused. "Why do you look so surprised, Shu?"

"'S just not possible," he said, stammering slightly. Fortunately, Inori did not catch it—or if she did, she made no sign to tell him so. "…why me? And why _you_?"

"Only one question should be asked in here, Ouma Shu," Inori said with her low, sweet voice, and Shu immediately knew himself for a goner. Those crimson eyes told him as much.

The sunlight streaming from the nearby window gathered the little dust motes and swirled them around, as the world bated its breath for a second.

"Will you go out with me?"


	2. The Hundred Events Surrounding Love

**Planetes**

* * *

**Two  
**_Omoi wo Megurasu 100 no Jishou  
_[The Hundred Events Surrounding Love]

* * *

_No matter what reasoning I come up with,  
__there's no explaining you_

—**Omoi wo Megurasu 100 no Jishou**, EGOIST feat. Yuzuriha Inori (trans.)

* * *

"Shu?" Ouma Mana looked rather surprised as her little brother dumped his bag on the couch, flung himself over after it, and groaned deeply. Mana had never known Shu to be this frustrated over something before, but she did acknowledge the fact that it was decidedly better than the flat apathy that had taken hold of him ever since their father's death ten years ago. "What's with that groan? Got turned down by a girl?" She paused, raising her pale eyebrows. "Maybe even flunked a quiz?"

"Mana-nee, not _now_." Shu rolled over, undid the first button on his shirt, and found himself staring into Mana's narrowed eyes, bent over him as she was. "…!"

"Get up and change into more comfy clothes, Shu," Mana laughed as she poked his nose with the blunt end of a fork. Blinking at her, Shu got up grudgingly and rubbed the place she hit with a scowl. "I'm making some onigiri for a snack, so you can help yourself when you come back. Whatever teenage drama you might have experienced earlier can wait."

"Okay, _okay_." Shu scrambled up on his feet and retrieved his bag, eyes carefully scanning Mana as she went back to the kitchen, just to make sure that he wouldn't get assaulted again. Finding the coast clear, he rushed to his room, managing a hasty retreat as Mana turned around by closing the door silently behind him.

She had always been like that. Cheerful, at times the gentlest of people, and always mischievous. And it only got worse ten years ago, when he became the morose character that his present classmates all knew him to be, as if to counter his gloom with her brightness. Shu never did bother to find out how Mana persevered through it all. She had been the most steadfast of them three—while Haruka was still wading through the tears and Shu was struggling to cope up with the fact that his father had just died, twelve-year-old Mana kept on, setting the frazzled state of the household and occupying herself with the duties that Haruka should have been fulfilling, a feat that others could not have thought possible at her young age. Of course, Haruka eventually recovered (if not fully), but they could not have gone through the murk completely without Mana's help.

A knock resounded abruptly on his bedroom door. Cursing under his breath, Shu pulled the T-shirt on to finish changing.

"You dress up so _slow_, Shu." Mana gave him a teasing smile when he went out of the room and followed her to the kitchen. She placed a plate of the small rice balls on the table, along with a pitcher of water. "Like a girl."

"_Mana-nee_…" Shu sighed and went over to the dining table to sit beside his sister, plopping himself on a chair. "Stop teasing me. I've had a tiring day as it is."

"Don't tell me…" Mana took a piece from the plate and bit daintily in it, chewing slowly as she thought. Shu sighed again, and mentally asked himself how many times he had sighed today. He loved Mana, and she was a _great_ sister, but sometimes…

"You _did_ get dumped, didn't you?" she whispered conspiratorially, leaning forward with a very convincingly sympathetic expression. "I told you, if you'd just ask _me_…"

…she was really _frustrating_ to talk to.

"_No_, Mana-nee." Shu ate his rice ball whole, amid Mana's unrepentant giggling. "Actually…"

"Actually…?" Sobering up, Mana pressed him, growing more interested by the minute.

"Actually…"

Shu paused and let the word hang for a moment, finally realizing how stupid it would be if he just told _Mana_ that he got confessed to by a girl—and Yuzuriha Inori, at that.

"Actually, Souta and I had just had a spat over some forms that I was supposed to deliver to the student coordinator's office earlier," Shu said quickly, making Mana's shoulders slump when her anticipations of a good story to tease Shu about were dashed. "He thought that I hadn't already passed them to the secretary, so he attacked me with the topic over at the first ring of the dismissal bell. It took me a while to flatten him down again."

"I see." Mana yawned slightly and stood up, her hair falling over her shoulder as she turned when they heard the door open. "Is that Haruka-san in already?"

"No one else has access in here," Shu said with another sigh (this time of relief) as sure enough, Ouma Haruka burst into the living room, looking chipper in a deep lavender business suit.

"I'm home!" Haruka dropped her bag on the couch and wandered to where Shu sat, an easy smile spreading over her lips as she tackled Shu in a bear hug. "I _missed_ you, Shu—"

"Grrmmfffmmm!" was all that Shu could manage, half-smothered.

Mana laughed at the side as she watched the pair struggle briefly before Shu finally acquiesced, his arms going limp to let Haruka's envelop him.

"Welcome back, Haruka-san." Mana gestured to the plate on the table. "I made snacks."

"Thank you, Mana-chan. They look great~" Haruka ruffled Shu's hair affectionately before letting go, and grabbed a piece of onigiri before ambling to her room. "I'm gonna change first, okay? Later!"

When they heard the door to Haruka's room close, Mana immediately rounded on Shu. "Have you perhaps hidden something from me, Shu?" she said sweetly, making Shu swallow nervously. He should never have thought that he can trick Mana's eyes. She knew him a little _too_ well…

"I—" Shu was half-torn between continuing to spin the story, or owning up that he had just been confessed to by someone who was practically school royalty.

"_And_ don't try to trick your big sister again," Mana cautioned him with a thin smile, the one that creeped Shu out. "I'll know."

"Alright, alright. But don't tell Haruka yet. I bet she'll get rather… overexcited." Shu knew better than to argue with the women of the Ouma household. "You see…"

* * *

"_Saita no no hana yo…_"

Shu watched Inori rather bashfully as they rested by an artificial riverbank near Shu's home the next afternoon, the internet idol choosing to follow Shu back without no seeming purpose. Shu was okay with it, but Mana would surely already be there from university. He was quite worried about the possibility that his sister might overreact at the appearance of Inori—after all, she had been quite overprotective of him ever since the demise of their father.

"_Aa, douka, oshiete okure…_"

Inori seemed quite at peace with the world, although Shu was getting quite fidgety beside her, thinking up all of the possible scenarios that might erupt between the two. Inori was the perfect picture of imperturbability, but with Mana's volatile temper…

"_Hito wa naze kizutsukeatte…_"

_If only her usual choice of songs weren't so… depressing_, Shu thought with a quirk of his lip.

"_Arasou no deshou…_"

"Inori-san?" Shu quickly interrupted her, feeling rather bad at bursting Inori's bubble when she looked up at him, although he cannot detect a single change in her expression. "Er… Shall… we go up to my house now? My Mana-nee might be in already…" _Not that I'm looking forward to it…_

"I see." Inori tilted her head inquisitively, and Shu felt a question rise to his lips that he had asked before but hadn't had the opportunity to get the answer yet.

"Inori-san?" Shu's hands were unsteady, so he slipped them in his pocket. The girl before him chose not to notice the movement, instead focusing on his eyes and making him more fidgety. "You didn't answer my inquiry from way before. Why… why me? And… why _now_? All of a sudden?"

Inori's lips moved slightly, as if to answer, yet the silence that pervaded between them after that lasted for more than a moment. "Because you looked lonely."

Shu hadn't expected _that_ one. "_Excuse_ me?"

"You have friends, yet you looked lonely even amongst them." Shu could almost see the sadness in Inori's eyes. _Almost_. "Are you, Ouma Shu? Are you lonely?"

Shu swallowed. "I'm not. Maybe… maybe you're just imagining things. Anyway, that's not a very good reason to tell someone that you want to go out with them."

"Perhaps." Inori smiled just the teeniest bit, and Shu felt his heart skip a beat. He had never seen Inori look _this_ cheerful before, and that was saying something. "Then, did you want to go out with me, Ouma Shu?"

"Huh?" Shu squeaked, and clamped his mouth closed, face blushing like a rose. _She's the first girl that's not either Mana-nee or Haruka to get me this flustered_, he realized. "Wasn't that obvious, though, Inori-san?"

"Obvious?"

"Almost every guy in the class—no, make that the whole school, wanted to go out with you, you know." Shu couldn't believe how Inori looked so innocent of the fact when her eyes widened a little at the statement. "Seriously, did you just ask me that question? Of course I did!"

_God, did I just… WHAT THE HELL DID I JUST SAY_

"Is that… so?" Inori looked thoughtful. "Then, wouldn't it be reason enough to be together?"

_AND WHAT THE HELL DID SHE JUST SAY_

Shu forcibly shut down the part of his brain that was screaming from embarrassment and exhilaration and smiled tentatively. He felt as if he were just cheated to in a game of poker, and that Inori wouldn't own up to the trick. There was evasion in her answers, something that he couldn't define lurking in her expression. "Well, having cleared those points… Shall we go now?" _Cleared?_ his inner thoughts spoke. _Lies. You both didn't clear up anything. It only became more confused._

"Yes, we should."

Together, they stood, and even with the barrier between them, Shu felt his mood lift a couple notches more when Inori gazed at him with those crimson eyes, feeling in that teeny moment that he was the luckiest guy in all of Japan.

* * *

"Gai." Keido Shuichiro glared at his adopted son as the latter walked past him to the kitchen, eyes averted from his as if to avoid the topic that his father was anxious to talk to him about.

"Not now, father." Tsutsugami Gai was a patient man, but sometimes his adopted father's obsessions can get to him and try his patience, if only just for a bit. He could never understand why Keido let himself be so affected by his rival… especially if said rival was already dead.

"Have you already talked to the Ouma boy?"

So much for protesting… or trying to, at least. Gai knew a lost cause when he sees one.

"No, I haven't. We're in different classes." _And it felt awkward to just walk up and talk to a guy whom you haven't seen for almost ten years…_

Keido reclined back into the comfort of his deep armchair. "I see Ouma Kurosu in the eyes of that son of his. I wonder if he had left something in Haruka's care… some _little_ thing…"

"Father." Gai opened the refrigerator, and losing appetite because of the knowledge that his father's incessant questions would begin again, closed it. "I'm going out for a walk."

Quickly, in case he gets trapped into another manic conversation with his father about Ouma Kurosu again, he stepped out of the house, and was soon on a narrow bridge that spanned over the river in the immediate area.

"This is absolute bullshit," he muttered with a dry chuckle, leaning over the railing and watching the calm waters below. "My father's crazy obsession is getting way out of hand. And to target _Ouma Shu_, of all people…"

"Did I just hear my brother's name?"

Quickly, Gai spun around at the sudden intrusion, and found himself nose-to-nose with a positively interested-looking Ouma Mana. "Eh?"

"Hi. Wait… aren't _you_—?"

"Tsutsugami Gai," he said with a smile, trying not to be fazed at the fact that Mana had just intruded into his personal space and wasn't particularly repentant about it—actually, she looked more amused than anything. "And you're Mana-san, right?" He suddenly found himself staring, and looked away with an apology for being rude. Mana just seemed so… changed yet unchanged from the last time he had seen her.

"Oh, drop the honorifics, Gai—or, should I say, Triton?" Mana smiled at him, the recognition in her eyes and the sound of his childhood nickname making Gai sigh secretly in relief. "How long have you been back in here? We've never heard of anything…"

"Hasn't Shu told you yet? We're schoolmates, actually—transferred about a month ago. He should have at least seen me walking around the campus. Although, maybe he was sensing the same awkwardness I feel whenever I wanted to go and greet him. After all, the last time we've been together was when we were children." Gai could never believe how harder his words seem to flow whenever he is around Mana, how the topics that he chose to talk about were more frivolous and shallow. Even after ten years, her effect on him still hasn't worn off...

"That _Shu_, learning to hide stuff from his big sister." Mana fumed silently, her cheeks puffed slightly. It made Gai smile the littlest of smiles, but it carried a hint of happiness anyway. "I'll talk to him later. Or what about right now, actually? I'm heading home anyway. Won't you come? Haruka would be so glad to see you. We could have tea and catch up with one another—you owe that much after moving back without so much as a visit."

"I'd be glad to," Gai said politely, although inside, his spirits were elated so impossibly that he couldn't believe himself.

"Let's go, then, Triton!" Mana's pale hand crossed the distance between them, and before Gai could react, the distance of ten years seemed to melt away with a single meeting of their opened palms.

* * *

"There's no one around?" Shu felt puzzled as he unlocked the door and peered in the dark hallway to the Oumas' sitting room. "Mana-nee was supposed to have come home already… way before me…"

Inori silently followed Shu into the house as he slapped the lights on, flooding the room with light and revealing a mess of magazines scattered on the coffee table in the middle.

Shu took a glance at them and looked back at Inori. "I think my sister's out for the moment. Make yourself comfortable, okay?"

_This is only prolonging the inevitable… _

Inori took up a corner on the couch and sat there with a docile look, and Shu immediately rummaged in the kitchen.

"Tea, Inori-san?"

"…Mm."

The teapot was already filled when Shu heard his sister's key turn in the lock. Apprehensive, he went to greet his sister at the doorway, Inori almost automatically standing up at the sound of the opening door.

"Shu~" Mana smiled as she spotted her brother at the hall, and noted that he looked rather nervous as their eyes met. Before Shu could say anything, though, she said gaily, "Is that tea I smell? Good Shu!" She smiled happily, as though she were bearing a present. "We have a guest!"

Shu's eyes were puzzled. "Eh?"

Gai stepped in the threshold, and Shu's eyes locked on his face with, first surprise, and then a tentative defiance. Gai almost wanted to laugh at his childhood friend's expression. "Sorry to disturb, but Mana invited me and I can't say no." He smiled. "Good to see you, Shu."

"...Likewise." Shu crossed his arms, and Gai saw a shadow cross behind him. The thin figure of Yuzuriha Inori came into view, her eyes immediately taking in the scene before her. Her lips opened slightly as though to say something, but couldn't.

"Inori?" Gai was doubly amused at the spectacle, while Mana was visibly surprised herself at her brother's guest.

"A girl, Shu?" Mana looked confused (and offended Shu's pride, considerably, although he liked to think that he was well above it) and, to Shu's bafflement, smiled, like the perfect elder sister, at Inori. "Perfect! Tea for four, then!"

Shu did consider the fact that this would be the most torturous afternoon of his seventeen years of existence.

* * *

_Lyrics translation: (c) carlenne. livejournal. com_

* * *

**Slow and steady wins the race. ^w^**

**Reviews?**


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